Ok - this may come across as a silly question to some but why do we do the motions of chi sau?
I know the first answer will be something like ‘to improve your sensitivity’ etc. and I understand that but can anyone explain why we do it in that particular fashion?
From a non WC practitioner looking at chi sau it does look a little bit daft. Locking arms and rocking them back and forth. And as a WC practitioner I’ve kind of just accepted it as most do.
It’s just that when I get asked by friends why I’m so engrossed by a martial art in which it’s main claim to fame (so to speak) looks like patty-cake it’s kind of hard to explain to them why i’m doing it.
If someone on here who teaches has a good way of explaining the reasoning behind chi sau then i’d appreciate it
It is logical that an art that relies heavily on contact must train it to the upmost.
I agree that some are more in patty-cake than serious chi sau that involves the whole body structure in motion. Good chi sau does not look or feel like patty-cake.
As far as doing chi-sao, we do it for contact reflexes, development of forward intention, close range fighting, trapping drills, footwork, stance work, etc…It is just a drill to develop attributes to help one succeed in close range combat, where WC is known to fight at times. I like to tell students that when you are in combat, especially at close range, you do not have time to react fast enough, so you practice chi-sao so that your arms have sort of a radar to the opening in the opponent defences and moves towards that opening with no consious thought, that’s why forward intention development is paramount.
Why do we practice chi-sao in the way we do with tan/fok/bong/wu structures? Well there are many variations to the drills depending on who you training with, but the main idea is to learn how to protect the centerline and develop economy of movement in everything you do in WC. In the lineage I am with, we have first single arm chi-sao, then cross arm/parallel chi-sao in front stance then double arm chi-sao. All techniques are practiced first in a pre-determined manner then random, then pre-determined with blindfold then random with blindfold.
I remember my friends asking me the same questions, then they came to my level 10 test and understood. It’s hard to explain the concept of chi-sao that’s why it’s best for them to go to your school and experience it for themselves.
Thanks for that sihing, that was what I was after I was lacking a sort of structured way of explaining it. It’s just easier to show in action rather than words sometimes
Originally posted by Whiplash
[B]… it’s kind of hard to explain to them why i’m doing it.
If someone on here who teaches has a good way of explaining the reasoning behind chi sau then i’d appreciate it
Thanks [/B]
The way to explain the purpose of ChiSao to someone who does not understand the purpose of ChiSao - and really needs to know it in a nutshell - is to blast them.
If a practitioner cannot do this after training for a while, then the possibility distinctly remains that they are indeed learning patty-cake.
Chi sao teaches you what to do once arm contact has been made. There are only so many configurations possible once contact has been made. Either both arms are inside, both are outside or one arm is inside and the other is outside. When two arms are in contact either the hand is facing up on the inside or facing up on the outside or is facing down. Basically those are called Tan sau, Fook sau and Bong sau for lack of a better thing to call them. The chi sau mechanics is basically a mechanism to cycle through all the possible hand contact possibilities and during any part of the cyle an attack can be launched by either side. The other side can defend in many ways.
Other ways to just stick are possible too (other styles do it) but usually they violate the centerline idea and they don’t use the Wing Chun fundamental structures of Tan, Bong and Fook.
Chi sau can also just involve Poon sau or rolling to develop the stance (being rooted) and the proper feeling and proper centerline protection and attack mechanisms. Even this part can take a long time to develop.
Once you know the basics then you can expand and expand to make Chi sau look like anything under the sun by adding any kind of attack from any style of combat. The hitting can be as realistic as people like.
After chi sau you can start from close range and attack and then start from further and further out until you have covered the whole spectrum of realistic fighting ranges.
Chi sau can also be extended to cover ground fighting. It helps if someone in the club has actual ground fighting experience to make it much more usefull. Likewise it helps if someone can really kick to train defense against kicks more realistic etc. (simulating other styles).
Chi sau is something you can at least do until you are 108 years old. That’s the beauty of it. Full contact fighting where you mean to take the guys head off is just for the young and foolish or those who want to make a reputation as a ring fighter.
IMHO, what to tell someone who has ‘no idea at all’ what chi sau is…is that it’s a complex drill that trains autonomic (sp?) motor reflexes and tactile sesitivity.
Also, along with this, you should explain that the ‘doctrine’ of WC is not ‘blocking’ attacks, it’s intercepting (bridging) the opponet and the hand techniques are not ‘blocks’ but deformations of an attack.
when you think you have cross your set up of eternal connected brigde , lock or kam na… and going to take me down, my game just started…
it is a dirty dancing that one doesnt want to go near..
Thus, one needs the snake body enginee and the zero time/distance acceleration…and the fingers are ready to stink any time any place.
and open wide to let you come in…
Originally posted by AmanuJRY
[B]IMHO, what to tell someone who has ‘no idea at all’ what chi sau is…is that it’s a complex drill that trains autonomic (sp?) motor reflexes and tactile sesitivity.
Also, along with this, you should explain that the ‘doctrine’ of WC is not ‘blocking’ attacks, it’s intercepting (bridging) the opponet and the hand techniques are not ‘blocks’ but deformations of an attack. [/B]
I don’t think “autonomic” reflexes are what you are working on here. The autonomic nervous system regulates involuntary processes like breathing, digestion, and the like, but also more complex phenomena like the “fight or flight” or “rest and digest” patterns.
But with a few exceptions, like some being able to consciously regulate heart rate or blood pressure to some degree, the processes it regulates are beyond conscious control.
Training can help you deal with and manage the adrenal dump (an autonomic phenomenon), but cho sao don’t help much for that.
My understanding was that reflexes in reaction to some types of outside stimuli (like pulling ones hand away from something that burned it, the action happens before the brain registers the stimuli) were also of the autonomic system. If I’m mistaken, my bad.
To me, this is the result we want from our chi sau, to develop the reaction (WC techniques) to the stimuli (opponents attack pressure/energy) without concious effort (or preconcieved notion of what/how/when). To have the technique so ingrained that the lower (sub-concious) regions of the brain are processing the input.
The best example I can think of are good practicans who can carry on a separate conversation while still maintaining proper structure and pressure in chi sau.
Actually I just found this; a parasypathetic autonomic response that we all develop a degree of concious and even subconcious control over…going to the bathroom.
[B]Thus, I have heard.
when you think you have cross your set up of eternal connected brigde , lock or kam na… and going to take me down, my game just started…
it is a dirty dancing that one doesnt want to go near..
Thus, one needs the snake body enginee and the zero time/distance acceleration…and the fingers are ready to stink any time any place.
and open wide to let you come in…
Once I was teaching chi sau at a rec centre. We were doing the rolling action. This policeman was watching from the door. After about 20 minutes of watching he was about to go. I went to the door and asked if he had any questions. He politely said no he doesn’t and thank you very much. Then I asked him if I could show him something. He said sure. So I told him to block one of my slow moving punches and he did the usual kind of Karate style blocks. Then from that I responded and we played for about 5 minutes and he could get nothing in yet I could hit him at will with control. So he was amazed.
Later he told me he had a background in boxing, Judo, army combat and police hand to hand self defense. He said what he saw looked like garbage because he just couldn’t relate to it from his background. So he joined up and stayed for about 3 years until he was assigned to do some undercover work in another city.
So the best is always to let your hands do the talking. After you totally control someone then they might listen to you. Otherwise whatever you say makes no sense whatsoever. It will go in one ear and out the other. After you do this then you can relate the skills to chi sau and explain where they went wrong and how chi sau trains you to do more intelligent things than they did.
You probably don’t mean autonomic.
I think “somatic” is what you’re after.
It’s related to motor neurons rather than your sympathetic ones.
Originally posted by AmanuJRY
[B]Actually I just found this; a parasypathetic autonomic response that we all develop a degree of concious and even subconcious control over…going to the bathroom.
